Yesterday while I was feeding the animals and hanging out with Willow and Rose, I heard this peeping sound. I looked to my left to find a hen and two chicks.

I was confused….

and so was Matilda.

You see, this was highly unusual, seeing that this hen had not known a rooster. It entered my mind to call the Catholic Church to see if they would validate this as a miracle, but for some reason I dialed my cousins who, incidentally, happen to be Catholic.

During our conversation, I noticed that the chicks had bright orange legs and feet.

Then I realized that they probably weren’t little chickens at all. Instead, they were little guineas, which means that they are keets instead of chicks. I’ve had five guinea fowl for a couple of years,

but I thought they were all hens. I read that one way to tell the roosters from the hens is that the roosters say, “chi-chi-chi” and the hens say, “buck wheat-buck wheat-buck wheat”. However, when they all start talking at once, you can’t tell who’s saying what.

Before dark, I caught the hen and the two keets and put them in a cage to protect them from any vermin that might happen by.

This morning, when I went to check on them, I saw only one keet. I could hear the muffled peeps of the other, but did not notice its little legs frantically beating the air

toward the back of the hen.

But when the hen turned around,

I saw that poor little keet…

stuck in the crack of that hen………..if a hen has a crack.